A New York Times essay recently suggested that Hollywood abandon the so-called “four-quadrant” marketing plan, in which a single movie can supposedly attract viewers male and female, old and young. The current success of Furious 7 (young, male) proves the impossibility of that task, as do franchises like Insurgent (young, female) and Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (old, mixed). Back in the day, Douglas Sirk and other melodramatists made what were forthrightly labeled women’s pictures, and October Gale slots comfortably into that distaff AARP demo.
First of all: Patricia Clarkson, aging gracefully, cast as a recently widowed physician, trapped by a storm on a coastal Canadian island with a mysterious stranger. (Also a handsome younger mysterious stranger, as in All That Heaven Allows.) He’s a tattooed, wounded fugitive; she removes the bullet from his shoulder before a raging fire (after cutting off his shirt and loosening his belt, of course); and later, like any good hero of romance fiction, he’ll also have occasion to save her life and advance a firm but gentlemanly kiss. This is the kind of movie that will cause hot flashes even in men.
Second, though presented as a thriller (and two bodies do eventually hit the floor), the action begins only in the last 20 minutes, with the arrival of Tim Roth’s polite, Brit-accented killer. For reasons he’ll explain in the movie’s big plot twist (its only twist), the fugitive (Scott Speedman, from the Underworld movies) must die. The prior 70 minutes of scene-setting illustrate Dr. Helen’s grief, show us flashbacks of her past happy marriage, and generally describe a comfortably rustic, Ralph Lauren-style summer-home existence. October Gale is a pleasant place to visit, though a dull, predictable movie to watch. Though if you have a place in the San Juans to decorate, the film supplies many catalogue pages to mentally fold back.
Clarkson and director Ruba Nadda made a slightly more interesting romance in 2010’s Cairo Time, where the older woman/younger man dynamic rested on an exotic location, unhurried by killers knocking at the door. For their next collaboration, I recommend Tahiti and Keanu Reeves as a mysterious marine biologist/surfing instructor. That way Clarkson won’t even have to cut off his shirt.
bmiller@seattleweekly.com
OCTOBER GALE Opens Fri., April 10 at Sundance Cinemas. Not rated. 91 minutes.